Since the time of the Gonzaga Lords, who are great patrons of artists, there has been a long tradition in this area of the passion for music and there are many examples. In Mantua we will remember the presence of illustrious personalities such as Monteverdi and Mozart and the tradition of the school of lute-makers, the singing School of and the Academy of Music.
In Sabbioneta, which is part of the Mantua area, the architect V. Scamozzi created at the end of the sixteenth century, the theatre "all'Antica", according to the rules of the classical theatre and after Palladian “Teatro Olimpico” at Vicenza

The history of the music sites of Mantua will start at the Ducal Palace, visit the Grotta of Isabella d’Este and the Room of the Mirror concert hall, recently restored, to recall the cultural atmosphere of the Gonzaga Lords. Here Monteverdi composed the first important Italian musical Melodrama and other works expressly for the Duke of Mantua. The organs particularly deserve to be mentioned, like the one built by G. Antenati in 1565 for the palatine church of Santa Barbara, which established Mantua as a capital of music.

By the statue of Rigoletto, you will remember the adaptation of that drama by V. Hugo, Le roi s'amuse. Not to be missed is the visit of the Baroque theatre “Scientifico”, jewel of A. Galli Bibiena, and beside it the neoclassical façade on Piermarini’s Accademia Virgiliana. Here Mozart played on his first Italian tour of which interesting testimony remains in a letter of his father Leopold still displayed in Mozart’s birthplace in Salzburg.